News Archive

Yuwan Malakar has good reason to be focused and driven these days. The 30-year old environmental management major from Nepal has just had his first paper on climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) published in one of the highly respected online journals of the Policy Studies Organization.

Threatened by increasing and lethal seasonal floods, the 500-year old Malaysian port city of Melaka is making considerable efforts to reduce the disaster risks that it currently faces from such climate related catastrophic events.

UNISDR today welcomed the full publication of the Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) and said "it provides us with the impetus for action to save the world from the worst that climate change can bring to our planet in the coming years."

Prevention and response to water-related disasters and crises are high on agenda at this week's Sixth World Water Forum which has resulted in a Ministerial Declaration that "we intend to develop and strengthen national and trans-boundary disaster prevention and response strategies."

Following a recent decision by its Cabinet to buy land in Fiji as 'climate change insurance' for its population, Kiribati President, Anote Tong has called on the international community to address the effects of climate change that could wipe out the entire Pacific archipelago.

The UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, and HE Yoichi Otabe, the Japanese Ambassador to the International Organizations in Geneva, announced today the start of consultations on a new international blueprint for reducing disaster losses in advance of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction which the Japanese government is proposing to host in 2015.

Government representatives, climatologists, agricultural experts, disaster risk managers and others gather in Kigali, Rwanda, for three days next week to share information on the possibility of a third consecutive year of drought in the Horn of Africa.

The Head of the UN's Disaster Risk Reduction Office, UNISDR, Margareta Wahlström, today congratulated three Philippines Senators for leading an in-depth, two-day post-mortem with local leaders into the devastating losses caused to Mindanao island by Typhoon Sendong in December.

Europe's vulnerability to disasters and the current tough winter "are a clear sign that we need to plan better and manage more robustly the risks we face," warns European Commissioner, Kristalina Georgieva, who is responsible for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response.

A new briefing paper from Oxfam identifies "the limited investment in building resilience and disaster risk reduction (DRR), despite rhetoric to the contrary" as one of main failures of humanitarian aid in recent times.

In advance of critical rainfall forecasts for the Horn of Africa, the UN office for disaster risk reduction, UNISDR, today announced a partnership with the WMO-supported African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) to ensure rapid dissemination of weather updates to disaster managers.

A new groundbreaking report due out next month underlines how the well-being of vulnerable, impoverished populations living in parts of the world most exposed to disasters fuelled by climate change, will be severely undermined in the coming century.

The dynamic new Vice-President of the National Assembly of Panama, Rony Araúz, is emerging as a leading advocate of disaster risk reduction in Central America following a career monitoring the passage of hazardous materials through the Panama Canal.

As world governments prepare for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro this June, the UN has published a practical guide "to promote a transition to an inclusive Green Economy."

A 15-day state of disaster is currently in effect in areas on the west coast of Fiji that have been ravaged by floods which began on 22 January. A flood watch is in place as periods of heavy rain are expected. All those living in flood-prone areas have been advised to evacuate and take with them food, water and a change of clothes. As of today, there are 21 active evacuation centres with a total of 1,333 evacuees.

Climate change was a key driver in 2005 when 168 UN member states agreed on an international blueprint for disaster risk reduction but there is no reference in the Hyogo Framework for Action* to the environmental threat posed to the world’s retreating glaciers by criminal gangs.

Mayors from the Mindanao region in the Philippines recently ravaged by Typhoon Sendong have been tasked to invest more in prevention and mitigation measures, by one of last year’s recipients of the prestigious Sasakawa Award.

UNISDR Chief, Margareta Wahlström, was standing at “ground zero” of typhoon-battered northern Mindanao as she surveyed the remains of the once vibrant community of Kala-Kala, Barangay Macasandig, in Cagayan de Oro City.

Bequia is a delightful link in the chain of islands which make St. Vincent and the Grenadines such an attractive destination for sun worshipping tourists. With a population of 4,300 people and an area of just 18 km2, it is on the frontlines of the unfolding drama of climate change and Small Island Developing States. And, like many small tropical islands during the dry season, Bequia has problems with water supply which global warming threatens to exacerbate.

“The animals are dead. The rivers, lagoons and dams are dry. They have to move to neigbouring countries like Tanzania in search of pastures and water. As they move, they suffer from hunger and they want lie down because they’re tired from having to walk long distances”.
These are the words of Jemimah Maitei Kerenge, Maasai filmmaker and an advocate for the dire situation of her drought-devastated people in Kenya. Their ancient culture is being destroyed by climate change and they are being forced to migrate in their thousands out of their ancestral lands into neighbouring countries.

UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, in a recent interview, highlighted the prevention of disasters and making the world safer among his 'five generational priorities' for his second term which began on Sunday.

In an era of climate change, countries without national disaster prevention plans will find their cities and municipalities repeatedly engulfed by disasters, warned Philippine Senator Loren Legarda, UNISDR Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in the Asia Pacific, who said governments should not be “content with post-disaster relief and rehabilitation” alone.

UNISDR has organized an exchange visit between the Philippines and Japan, two of the countries worst-affected this year by a series of disasters ranging from a major earthquake which triggered a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown in Japan, and back-to-back typhoons in the case of the Philippines...

Members of parliament from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Senegal, Uganda and the East African Legislative Assembly came together in Geneva this week to agree on the establishment of a Global Advisory Group for parliamentarians with UNISDR’s Special Adviser on Parliamentarians, Feng Min Kan.

President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines today declared a “National State of Calamity” as the official death toll from Typhoon Sendong reached almost 1,000 and 338,000 people remain affected in 13 southern and central provinces. Almost 50,000 people who lost their homes are in shelters.

It's one of the world's greatest cultural attractions. About 20 million tourists pour through its streets each year and travel its waterways. Venice, Italy, sits at sea level, and any changes in the mean sea level leaves the city open to floods, endangering the artistic and cultural heritage of this 1,000-year old UNESCO world heritage site.

Ten years after the first Funds were established to support adaptation activities in developing countries, the world, and Africa in particular, is waiting to see if a deal can be brokered this weekend at the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban which would amount to a quantum leap in the finance available to reduce disaster risk in countries bearing the brunt of climate change.